1. Gale Sondergaard was the first recipient of the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her film debut in Anthony Adverse.
17 Facts About Gale Sondergaard
1. 2.
Gale Sondergaard regularly had supporting roles in films during the late 1930s and 1940s, including The Cat and the Canary, The Mark of Zorro and The Letter.
3.
Gale Sondergaard moved with Biberman to New York City and worked in theater.
4.
Gale Sondergaard only returned to occasional acting in film and television beginning in 1969, when she moved back to Los Angeles.
5.
Gale Sondergaard's father taught at the University of Minnesota, where she was a drama student.
6.
Gale Sondergaard studied acting at the Minneapolis School of Dramatic Arts before joining the John Keller Shakespeare Company.
7.
Gale Sondergaard later toured North America in productions of Hamlet, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice and Macbeth.
8.
Gale Sondergaard made her first film appearance in Anthony Adverse as Faith Paleologus, for which she received the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.
9.
Gale Sondergaard's career flourished during the 1930s, notably as the steadfastly loyal wife of disgraced innocent Alfred Dreyfus in The Life of Emile Zola starring Paul Muni.
10.
Gale Sondergaard was cast as the sultry and slinky Tylette, a magically humanized but devious cat, in The Blue Bird, and played the exotic, sinister Eurasian wife in The Letter starring Bette Davis.
11.
Gale Sondergaard had a supporting role in The Spider Woman, part of the Universal cycle, followed by the non-canonical The Spider Woman Strikes Back, for Universal.
12.
Gale Sondergaard received a second Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actress for her role as the king's principal wife in Anna and the King of Siam.
13.
Gale Sondergaard resumed her career in film and television around the same time.
14.
Gale Sondergaard's younger sister Hester Sondergaard was an actress who featured in Seeds of Freedom, The Naked City, Jigsaw and The Big Break.
15.
Gale Sondergaard married actor Neill O'Malley in 1922; they divorced in 1930.
16.
Gale Sondergaard became a film director and died in 1971.
17.
Gale Sondergaard had been admitted to the hospital in 1982.